Tuesday, 19 June 2012

NCR Sweet potato and chickpea salad and pinterest reflections

Now that I have told you all about limes, here is one of the recipes I made with my limes. Not a great success. Great ingredients. Just a fail in seasoning. With a bit of tweaking of the dressing (or maybe trying this lime vinaigrette) and a some hot weather and vegie burgers, I am convinced that I would love this sweet potato and chickpea salad with almond feta and lime.

I served the salad with tofu nuggets the first night and enjoyed it but E wasn't so keen. The next night I made a total mess of it by mixing it with some rice. Despite my ambivalence towards this salad, I quite liked the photos. It's one of the ironies of food blogging that ultimately we are making food to taste great but we mainly stimulate your tastebuds through another sense - the eyes!

With this in mind, I thought I would share a few more photos from the weekend and reflect upon Pinterest. We went to Fitzroy Market and met my friend Heather. We enjoyed looking at all the trash and treasure. Sylvia had to have a button and I was pleased to find a pair of Clarks shoes for her for a mere $5. Last time the only takeaway food stall was the bbq with (veg) sausages but this month there were stalls with soup, cupcakes, (veg) sausages and slices and cakes.

After the market we had a lovely long late lunch at the Gasometer Hotel (more on that soon). Then we came home and both E and Sylvia went to bed and I had almost half an hour to myself before Sylvia woke up again. E slept through until morning!

Among the treasures for sale at the market were these wonderful old cameras. They remind me of cameras I have known and those I wish I had known. I really wanted to buy one but I had to resist because I have neither the use nor the room for such memorabilia. So too, Pinterest fascinates me because it is so much about capturing images. For practical use? To just admire? I gather that, other than recipes to recreate, many people like the visual references to help plans events, renovations and parties. I suspect some of us just like to gaze and sigh at beauty.

I have been thinking about this because I set up my own Pinterest account recently. I love the concept of creating pinboards of images. I have previously referred to the copyright issues which have created concern among users. It has made me wary about what pictures I pin. Pinterest is exciting and scary because it has such promise and yet it still is not quite in good enough order for complete comfort.

Pintereest is even in my dreams. Recently I dreamt some bad men were after me and I hid in a book as a Pinterest bookmark! It fascinates me and is a time waster and a mystery. I think that I just see what the people I follow are looking at when I go to pinterest.com now. (Can someone tell me if this is correct or if I should be seeing followers updates in other ways?)

Yet despite my love of pretty pictures, I also love words - as must anyone who has read this far. An image doesn't quite tell me what is in the above sandwich (spinach, mock tuna salad and avocado) or that I was very proud of Sylvia when, after doing some painting together, she created the above one all by herself. Pinterest has space for some text but it is frustrating. It destroys the aesthetic if people write too much and if I am not alert enough to edit text when repinning, I find it puts others' words in my mouth. So I am enjoying Pinterest but with caution. I'd love to hear what you think of Pinterest.

Now I will send this salad to Jacqueline for No Croutons Required (with a theme of leafless salads this month) and go back to marvelling at having felt the couch move in Melbourne's mini-earthquake and pulling my hair out over the Australian journalism crisis. Then I might just do a bit of pinning and repinning.

Roast sweet potato tossed with olive oil and salt at 220 C for about 1 hour or until soft when pierced with a fork. Mix with remaining ingredients. Make lime dressing by whisking all ingredients together with a fork and toss through salad.

24 comments:

I love using pinterest as a place to organize recipes that I want to bookmark and craft ideas that I want to try, etc. I try to respect copyright by writing the name of the original blog in the text area.

That salad looks so delicious! i love sweet potatoes --- great flavor, great color! yum! and i know!! pinterest is THE ULTIMATE time zapper! I'll allow myself to browse for "just 5 minutes" and I'll look at the clock, and an hour will have gone by!! yikes!!

I love the look of and ingredient list for this salad. Generally I'm not a fan of salad dressings so I imagine I'd like it best plain (which obviously ruins the use of the limes!) and can see how it would go beautifully with veggie burgers.

I liked your thoughts on pictures / images and words - I too like both, but traditionally have been captured more by words than images. I am drawn into books far more than art or TV, although that is changing too with blogging and caring more about photos. I am yet to fully grasp Pinterist though, and whilst I have an account it is sadly unused!

Thanks Kari - I often have quite plain salad dressings - a bit of lemon juice and pepper often does me but I found the lime very acidic in this salad - unusually so - but am sure it would work well with not dressing at all

I love words but this post was reminding me of being a kid and reading books before I could read the words and how much I loved the pictures - I've always loved photos but blogging makes me care more about the quality of them

I love pinterest as it really does make it easy to keep things all in one spot while looking pretty and not taking up real 'space'. House ideas, party ideas, things to make. Quite often I would see something, love it, get off the computer and then immediately forget about it. this way I don't. It also works for finding something in books or mags. Most of the time I can find it again online and used as a reminder there it sits in my pinterest.I don't see it as a networking tool as a lot of people do though. (Solely for me.)

Thanks Brydie - I am still quite new to pinterest so will be interested to see how much it helps me remember stuff - I find that my delicious account has really helped me remember recipes. I don't really understand pinterest as a networking tool - though I sort of see it in the sharing of pins but I don't get the following

The salad looks fantastic, love the sound of lime in the dressing! I picked up some cheesecloth last weekend so I'm very keen to have a go at this almond feta soon. I haven't bothered with a pinterest account yet but I've gone on there out of curiosity to see what other people have bookmarked from my blog. I don't think I need another time waster!

Thanks Mel - I'd love to hear how you go with almond feta - I really enjoyed it but would like to try it again with a bit more oomph (which would also help this salad). I think I got drawn into pinterest when I looked at people bookmarking my photos on it

The salad does look delicious - funny that in reality it was just meh. I think the right dressing would make it fab. I loved meandering through your weekend with you - made me feel relaxed and happy coming along with you.

I barely have enough time to breathe right now; Pinterest is still a no-go area for me because I know it'll only create more anxiety as another "commitment" I have to spend time on. But I do appreciate that it gives many people inspiration!

It does sound like a good salad--what didn't work for you? And I have to say I was a little surprised (and thrilled) to see you on Pinterest! Yes, definitely a time waster. And yes, I use it to save recipes I might like to make later. ;)

That Sylvia is quite the artist, too! Is that painting for sale--??? :D

Thanks Ricki - the lime was too sharp in the salad - which is why I though a little taming would do the trick. I think pinterest is a great way to save recipes - and sorry Sylvia's pics are not for sale - yet :-)

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.